JAKARTA, Indonesia — Ayu Kartika Dewi says she remembers vividly a warning issued by a second-grade Muslim boy in South Halmahera, North Maluku who said, “bu Ayu, don’t go near the Christians; they’re monsters, they will endanger you.” Ayu told The Jakarta Post that she wondered at the time how an eight-year-old boy could harbor such hatred toward those of another faith who had never caused him harm. Ayu was working as a volunteer teacher from 2010 to 2012 at state elementary school SDN Papaloang in South Halmahera, where religious conflict from 2000 to 2002 resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Muslims and Christians. There, she discovered that many other children in her village, Papaloang, shared in the resentful feelings toward Christians. She said that she was worried about parental encouragement of such narrow-mindededness. If parents taught their children that people of different faiths and ethnicities were wrong and should be avoided, she said, the seeds of hatred would be planted. She believes that in Indonesia, many children are like her former students in Maluku; they have yet to learn the value of religious and ethnic diversity. It was this concern that prompted her to create the SabangMerauke program. The program is an interregional student exchange ...      Read more